«All transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain are recorded, therefore, sooner or later, we will discover what Russia was purchasing» — lecturer of the course «Blockchainomics»

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has imposed sanctions on 13 crypto operators that facilitated Russia’s trade with other organizations and countries using virtual currencies.

Stanislav Podiachev, a lecturer at the «Blockchainomics» course at Kyiv Mohyla Business School, commented on this development on Hromadske Radio.

«I can only explain what I see on the website of the US Treasury Department. There are sanctions imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control against some companies that indirectly finance Russia’s war against Ukraine. This list includes companies from the technology and trade sectors that cooperate with Russian state-owned banks and develop payment schemes to evade sanctions using cryptocurrencies. Of course, this is more of a political issue: whether the rest of the civilized world stops trading with Russia. Unfortunately, this has not happened yet. I believe that the attempt to punish or restrict companies that were involved in relations with Russian banks is correct. At the very least, these companies should be labeled and declared to be helping the aggressor country acquire more resources for the war against Ukraine. Of course, that document does not provide technical details on how these companies do this, but we can assume that they negotiate with foreign partners to ensure the exchange of goods and services, paying for them not in traditional currencies but in crypto assets», — explains Podiachev.

At the moment, we cannot completely block Russia’s ability to pay for goods with cryptocurrency. Therefore, the international community must control the supply chains that reach the aggressor country.

«The paradox here is that the root of this problem is definitely not in crypto assets or technology, but in the fact that there are companies, regimes, and governments that supply the components for weapons that then fly at us every night. The main and very significant advantage is that all moves on the bitcoin blockchain are recorded, so sooner or later we will find out what Russia has been buying. Unfortunately, the possibility of such trading for the enemy cannot be closed 100%. The issue here is not about payments but about controlling supply chains. Cryptocurrency is a network phenomenon, like the Internet, built in such a way that it is difficult to fight it. That is why we cannot yet completely cut Russia off from this network», — says the Blockchainics course lecturer.